Stability
by RelayECC
Summary: E/O set in season 9
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I'm nowhere near creative enough to have thought of these characters-all the credit goes to DW.

Chapter One

Olivia Benson stretched out her legs, instinctively stopping from stretching them out completely and accidently bumping her partner Elliot's feet. Nine years of working and sitting across from him had conditioned her to always stop right before her knees fully unraveled. Nine years had also conditioned her to read his moods fully by his expressions and the surplus of noises that escaped from his mouth. The occasional grunts and hisses followed by droughts of silence, then a furious scratching from his pen, then the grunt/hissing combination being repeated currently told her that there was quite a bit of wheel turning going on in his head, and that whatever he was thinking about was annoying him. She snuck a surieptous glance at him, taking in the cloudiness of his blue eyes, the frown wrinkle that almost joined his brow together, and the tightening around his mouth that pursed his lips to the point where they almost looked puckered. Yep, she thought. Most definitely an annoyed, pensive Elliot. Thank goodness it was the end of the day. Annoyed Elliot was enough to stomach normally (though admittedly over the last two or three years she had had to gulp down quite a bit of it) but if it had been the beginning of the day she would have had to keep an extra close watch on him and once again play his "handler". This way he could go home to his ever burgeoning family and let them deal with whatever thoughts had him so irritated.

No, she thought suddenly, that wouldn't be fair. Even though a small part of her (the part the she routinely had to shush whenever his family was at issue) wanted to just bloody let Kathy be the wife she had once again become but had never fully been deal with all of Elliot, his anger was still hers. Hers to manage, hers to control, hers to dissuade. Kathy herself had put that burden upon Olivia one fateful day in the park when she had met her to enlist her help in ending the marriage. THE MARRIAGE. She snorted, drawing a glance from her otherwise oblivious partner. That blasted meeting sure had been unnecessary. Kathy had told her, reminded her, that she was his partner, his stability. Of course, then had come the "jealousy confession" and with that, the burden of dealing with all of Elliot's anger issues had irrevocably been placed on her shoulders as her own penance. Because for one small second when Kathy voiced her concerns that Elliot may have preferred Olivia's company over her own, Olivia had felt validated. Even as she assured Kathy that he always talked about his family, that small, horrible part of her gave a little jump. And that meanness guilted her into trying her darndest to make it up to Kathy in everyway she could think of.

"El" she said softly. His eyes looked up at hers and held them for a moment. "I can finish up the paperwork on this if you want to get going".

He looked at her, huffed out a sigh, and said "Do you really think he loved his all of his wives the way he was supposed to?"

She looked up at him, contemplating her answer. All throughout their handling of the, as Munch so wittily termed it, "snitch" case, they had been on opposite sides. She had rather also thought that they were each a bit on the wrong sides, but Elliot had been quiet and contemplative throughout the whole thing (well, she thought, except the tackle in the courtroom…that was pure Elliot, pure Cop). After sifting through the evidence that she had seen in each of his wives eyes (which, as any reliable philosopher would tell, are the windows to the soul) she sighed and replied "I don't know. They each gave him something different. Maybe he loved their individualism. I still think its degrading though. One man doesn't need more that one woman to make him whole anymore than one woman needs one man".

"I just don't get it" he replied.

"Different culture EL" Olivia said back to him.

Elliot pushed up from his desk and mumbled something she couldn't quite understand but that sounded an awful lot like " Maybe you just don't get it" before putting his coat on and turning the lamp of on his desk.

"Goodnight" she called after him.

"Night" he threw back over his shoulder.

Olivia sighed, knowing that whatever that little conversation had been about, it had at least alleviated his tension enough that he could go back to his house in the suburbs without biting at his wife and kids and new son. She winced, fighting back the slight twinge that that particular image always seemed introduce. With the space that his feet usually occupied recently vacated, she uncurled her knees all the way and stretched her long legs. When her toes slithered under the back of her desk across the line to the underside of his, she couldn't help feeling that the underside of his desk felt far too empty.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Elliot drove through Queens, his mind still rank with the day's cases. A muscle in his shoulder was jumping uncomfortably, and he had to admit to himself that tackling that jackass in court today had probably not been his most brilliant idea. He had just been so "on edge". Ever since that moment in the Immigration office when everything had went ape shit he had been on edge. He could still feel Liv tensing behind him. He hadn't been able to look at her for more than a second, but the sheer size of her eyes had implied the "What the fuck?" thoughts screaming through her brain.

Wait a minute, he thought. Why the hell did he feel guilty over this. He was separated. Kathy had dated. Hell, Kathy had dated enough that he had even questioned the paternity of his own child. He'd still be questioning it if the damn car accident hadn't thrown everything out of whack.

Ugh, the car accident. There should seriously be some sort of limit on the personal chaos that SVU detectives had to deal with. The car accident, the baby, almost being blinded by that prick Picard, readjusting to life with Kathy, and his beautiful/smart/tough/bad ass best friend who also happened to be his partner in his professional life.

But back to the guilt. If he was going to be completely honest with himself (though seriously, after all the aforementioned chaos this would be an excellent time to keep lying) he didn't feel guilty when he thought of Kathy. He felt guilty when he thought of the wigged out look Olivia had in her eyes in the brief second he had made himself look at her.

That in itself was enough to make him want to go back to the squadroom and furiously fill out paperwork until he forgot. The darn woman had wormed her way so far into his skin over the past nine years that sometimes he wasn't sure where he ended and she began. The night his son was born he had been so detached that it hadn't hit him that he almost lost her until he saw her standing outside of Kathy's hospital room. His stomach dropped even as he smiled and walked towards her. He doesn't even remember what they said to each other, just that all the sudden it hadn't been enough to convince him that she was really ok. And so he grabbed her and held on, needing to feel her breath and squeeze her to make sure she wasn't hurt. And then he had closed his eyes. Big mistake. Eye closing plus long drawn out hug (alright, blast it, he freaking HELD her) equals very non-plutonic contact. And anything more than plutonic in regards to Olivia was something he had been avoiding, tamping out, and ignoring for years.

"Which" he says out loud, "I will continue to do. Because I have a wife again. And Olivia is my partner. And she is a better shot than I am."

But then the realities of this last case slammed back into his mind. Why on earth the man had had to love multiple women and marry them in the years preceding now, Elliot would never know. Couldn't he have done this polygamous stuff after he and Elliot's acquaintance was over? Honestly, Elliot thought. Nothing like watching another man acknowledge his love for multiple woman to make Elliot want answers. And so he had asked. And contemplated. And still, he did not understand why he so badly needed to know that there were answers out there to his questions on this case. He wasn't polygamous. He only loved one woman in that way. One. She has blond hair and brown eyes and…..wait. Blue. Kathy has blue eyes. Blast.

He pulled into his driveway in Queens and cut the engine. He sat for a few moments, as he did every night that he came home, and tried to cleanse himself of the days evils. As he got out, wincing because he was not thinking about the privilege of being home with his wife, but the duty of being home with his wife, his shoulder muscle started jumping again. This time he ignored the inner voice that said "tackling large suspects in you're early forties is a big no". He knew that the voice was only wishful thinking. The real cause of his ticking shoulder muscle had nothing to do with landing a 200 pound man on a tile floor, and everything to do with a pair of huge brown eyes popping out at him in a little office in the immigration building.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Olivia walked into the squadroom the next morning experiencing the same warm, burning feel in the bottom of her stomach that always accompanied her daily march into that harshest of realities. To see evil everyday, truly look at it and call it out, defeat it so that others didn't suffer from it was what she lived for. Unfortunately, the evil couldn't be recognized until it had already deeded some malignancy on humanity, left some child broken or some person irrevocably erased. That was why she got up in the morning. To serve, protect, and though it wasn't in any oath she had ever taken, heal. That responsibility and conflict was the source of the burning , warming stomach. She loved her job, really, but that didn't stop her from wishing that it was unnecessary. Of course, she thought wryly, without the people that made it necessary (i.e. child abusers, molesters, and a rather motley crew of rapists) she wouldn't exist. That thought, whenever it entered her head, made her want to explode with ironic jubilation. It's like some greek myth where the heroine is spawned from evil and then lives purely to destroy the evil that gave her life. See, she thought. Irony in its purest form.

She stepped up to her desk, the muscle in the middle of her back jumping slightly when she saw that her partner (and, if one wanted to put a fine point on it, best friend) wasn't in yet. She tamped down the annoyance she knew wasn't fair yet still existed towards him and sat down, huffing as she did so. Looking around and seeing everyone else already involved in the days affairs, she resignedly allowed the annoyance to creep back through her spine and shoulders. Good, she thought, my turn to be damn annoyed. Between yesterday's little revelation that Elliot had been playing the dating game in other governmental offices during his separation, his cryptic attempt at conversation last night, and his occupational tardiness , she had a few things to be irritated about.

"Damn" she said aloud (with enough volume that Fin looked up from his desk and glanced her way). She couldn't be aggravated with him about his slow arrival-it probably had something to do with the baby. Olivia had put her life on the line for the child, was the first one to hold him and notice that he had his dad's eyes, and therefore not only couldn't begrudge him for spending some extra time with his son, but felt a wave of understanding rush through her.

Ok, she thought, what about door number two. His little bombshell in immigration (she winced again, not knowing if she was referring to the woman or the information) was something she should be annoyed about. Definitely. But why? She knew he had dated a bit, but having it just dropped on her unexpectedly had not been pleasant. He was supposed to be her best friend, partner, comrade-since when did he not tell her about his life? Even though she had tried not to disclose her surprise yesterday, she had felt her body betray her. Her eyes, in fact, popped out of their sockets and turned to Elliot simultaneously all of their own accord. And that was the crux of that annoyance. She wasn't really annoyed with him. She was annoyed with herself because after the shock had come a surge of possessiveness that felt much like what she experienced when she thought of his anger as her part of him.

The cryptic conversation. There. Finally something that she could actually be a bit annoyed with. Yep, she wasn't going to find a reason for her annoyance about it, wasn't going to dissect it, but was simply going to hang on to that tiny excuse to feel a bit at odds with her partner.

"Olivia!" Cragen called from his office. "Dump job at Lexington and 5th, Elliot's already on his way." She stood up, her thoughts rapidly switching from her partner to the crime scene, and grabbed her keys and notepad. As she hurried out of the squadroom to the department sedan, she realized that the feeling in her stomach was back, the burning feeling quickly overpowering the warmth with the knowledge that another person had just been erased against their will.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Elliot waited impatiently for his partner to show up at the scene. Cragen had told him that she was already at the station when the call came in, whereas Elliot had been enroute and had simply needed to do a little creative navigating to get to the scene quickly. He had already interviewed most of the neighbors, but wanted to wait for Olivia before questioning the person who found the body.

The person who had found the body was a little girl, a child. She was eight years old and had been on her way to school when she had decided to take a short cut through an alley that would get her to school about five minutes faster. Unfortunately, halfway down the no longer innocent shortcut was the body of a young woman in her twenties who had been mutilated and dumped there, sans any clothing. Elliot knew that he should interview the child quickly so that she could go home and be with her parents-he knew she needed to go home where she felt safe. However, he could already feel the tell tale signs of righteous rage beginning to build in his heart. That someone had not only murdered a young woman but forever stolen the innocent childhood from this young girl by subjecting her far too early to the realities and cruelties of the world was enough to make him want to hunt down the bastard and help him have a few "accidents" on his way to the tombs. He needed Olivia's steadiness, compassion, and confidence to keep him steady and keep the aggression in his eyes from reaching the eyes of the child.

He stood there in the chilly December air, trying to tamp down his anger and frustration enough to be able to at least ask the easy, basic questions from the child. He tried thinking of his family, sure that those images would ease the strain on his face and turn his eyes back from the dark, almost navy color (the color he knew they always took when he was experiencing particularly strong emotions) to a light, clearer blue. However, the only images that came to him were ones of his Dickie and Lizzy looking at him unsurely, Maureen looking at him with pity, Kathleen looking at him with a vague disdain, Kathy looking at him much the same as she had in the years immediately before the separation, and Olivia looking at him with eyes so wide they popped out of her skull. His new son didn't even look at him in a settling way. Instead, he looked at him wonderingly. Elliot sighed, feeling the warm air rush out of his lungs and the cold air fight to get in. Elliot Jr was just another person he was going to have to one day explain things too. Which meant that sooner or later he was going to have to figure out-

"El" he felt a sense of warmth and security rush through him as he heard Olivia walk up beside him.

"I interviewed our witness" she said, leaving him feel vaguely guilty that he had been so lost in his head that he hadn't even noticed that she had arrived. Typical Olivia. Arrive, asses the situation completely, and take charge. She would have seen right away that he hadn't yet interviewed the girl, seen her wide green eyes, trembling shoulder, and curly hair that had gone limp with the days early horrors. She would have seen Elliot facing the alley, fighting his emotions down to a point where he could be gentle with the child. And so without a word, she had stepped in and had his back, giving over all of herself to save both the little girl and him. It was what she did, why she made such a wonderful other half for him.

"She's going to be ok Elliot" Olivia said, breaking into his thoughts again. "Her parents are good people; They are going to get her into therapy and give her all the time she needs to deal with this".

"Warner said the woman was murdered somewhere else, then dumped here. Time of death about 12 hours ago. No one the Unis interviewed saw the body being dumped or recognized her" Elliot said, the tightness in his chest easing with every word she spoke. "We won't have much to go on until we get an i.d."

"Alright," she said, continuing to use the same voice she always used she was trying to talk him down. It was soothing, much like the one she used when talking to victims, but their was a different element in it that he could never quite identify. Of course, since he was usually seething internally when she used it, he never had the chance to examine it until he replayed it in his head. "I'll meet you back at the squad" she finished, and walked away.

All of the sudden, the ballast that had been pushing its way back into him rushed out. The frustration and frenetic anger came back, and he strode to his car, grabbing the door handle so quickly that the hinges cracked in protest as he opened the door and the slammed it shut again. He turned the ignition, rotating his wrist with much more force than necessary. As he pulled out onto the road and began the drive back to his squadroom, he thought impatiently about being able to sit across his desk from Olivia and once again feel her calm balance him out. And it occurred to him that even though she was likely going to arrive before him, he still felt like he was the one waiting for her.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Olivia rolled her shoulders and neck up from there hunched position as she heard the slow, cadenced fall of her partner's footsteps. She had only been at her desk for a few minutes after arriving back at the precinct, but she had felt anxious the whole time that they had been separated. She didn't like to let him too far away from her during cases when children were involved. They were his weak point, his Achilles heel, and she was his Ace support wrap. Not a permanent fix, not a cast that would keep him immobilized but allow him to fully heal; no, not that. Instead, she was a bandage that would allow him to move, allow him to feel and give him just enough support to get through the day.

Olivia looked up to see that he had made his way across the squad room to their area. She heard the wheels of his chair squeal in protest as he jerkily pulled it back from his desk.

"Any new developments?" he said, the words coming out more as an expulsion of breath than a calm, thought-out inquiry.

"No" Olivia replied, biting back the need to point that she had only been in the precinct for three minutes more than him. "Warner said she'd run fingerprints and try to get an I.D. as soon as she got back to the lab."

"Great" Elliot said, his volume raising with ever syllable. "The M.E.'s office is 15 minutes closer to the dumpsite than we are. What is she doing, painting her nails? How long does it take to run a couple of damn prints!"

"About 20 minutes to go through the New York database" she replied, not looking up. She didn't need to. She knew she would see darkly haunted eyes, a grinding jaw, and a hell of a lot of vivid frustration.

"That wasn't really a question" he grumbled. She sighed, relief seeping through her as she realized that her flippant remark had managed to bring him back from the crime scene imbedded in his mind to the present.

She looked at him (for the first time since he had entered the precinct) holding his gaze and said "I know, Elliot." He stared back at her and she could see his eyes becoming lighter, evening out as his frustration cooled. She did know, and for a second, as she always did, she let the layers of walls peel back from her eyes so that he could see that she did know. She knew the pain, the frustration, the hopelessness-she saw everything he did.

They were interrupted by the ringing of her phone. As she flipped it open and pressed the green answer key she walled her eyes up and forced the connection back down to where it belonged, buried so deep that it took a willful effort to bring it to the surface whenever she felt that he needed to see it, needed to hold on to it. She never let it out of its strongbox for very long.

"Benson" she said into the phone.

"Liv", Melinda Warner's melodious voice coerced it's way through the loudspeaker, "I've got an I.D., as well as some trace. You want the information over the phone or do you want to come down here?"

"We'll be right there" Olivia said. She flipped her phone back down and looked back at Elliot. "Melinda's got an ID for us" she explained.

"Alright" said Elliot. "Lets have head down- " he was interrupted by the ringing of his desk phone. "Stabler" he answered. He turned away from her then, away from their desks, but she could still inadvertently hear parts of his conversation. "Kathy" she heard him say, "I've only been at work for two hours….no I can't guarantee I'll be home on time tonight…..well fine, don't make me anything than….FINE !" he shouted as he slammed down the phone. Fin and Lake both looked up from their desks. Lake looked slightly puzzled and blushed slightly like he had overheard something she shouldn't. Fin just paused, shook his head, and went back to work.

Olivia had sat up and put on her coat while he was talking, trying to make enough noise to miss the conversation. She was curious, but she knew she shouldn't be, she had no right to know what was wrong with him and Kathy as long as it didn't affect him on the job. "Ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah" he said looking down at the ground. She knew he was trying to compartmentalize, put whatever was disrupting his personal life away so that he could get his head back in the game. They began walking out through the corridor and into the parking lot. The sun had broken through the clouds and the entire atmosphere felt warmer. The only spot that didn't feel warm was the three inch space in between Olivia and Elliot as they walked in tandem. This was always the way it was when he was angry about his family-he gave off cold rage. Hot rage, the kind that seared through anyone less than two feet away from him, was reserved for crime. Cold rage equaled family problems.

She sighed as they got into the car. She was going to have to try to fix this in order to get him refocused on the case. She hated talking about Kathy. The idea always made her want to twitch. She didn't acknowledge the deeper reason that caused the twitch-she could feel it emanating from the connection that she had forced to the surface back in the squadroom. The other, more rational reason was that all of the conversations and links she and Kathy had ever had were uncomfortable-her buying Kathy's birthday present when Elliot had been at a loss, Kathy coming into the bullpen numerous times looking for Elliot and always appearing a bit peeved that Olivia seemed to have a sixth sense for where he was, the infamous divorce conversation, and worst of all….the car accident. She had been terrified for Kathy, terrified for someone she barely knew. And Kathy's turn to extreme gratefulness in the wake of the incident had been even more awkward. Well, she thought as she swallowed hard, nothing but to meet it head on. After all, she and Elliot were both battering rams, and that's just how rams communicated.

"What's wrong Elliot?" she demanded quietly.

He glanced her was and tensed his shoulders. She could tell he was about to pull out some secondary answer about the girl or the crime. She knew that he knew that she wasn't asking about that. He knew that she understood every emotion that had run through him when he looked into the large green eyes of their young witness. Olivia prepared herself to tell him not to try it when he suddenly deflated, his muscles imploding as he looked straight at her.

"Kathy wants me to cut back on my hours….maybe transfer to another unit. I told her that wasn't happening. She brought it up a couple of weeks ago and hasn't really let up on hinting that this won't work if I don't change." He looked back at the road.

Olivia stared at the window. She had had another mild conniption (much like what she felt in the immigration office with the "bombshell") when she heard the word transfer. She knew transferring would only make his problems worse. When she had gone to computer crimes she had felt so displaced, so frustrated. He would feel the same way-his anger would manifest itself even more frequently at home. She didn't want to come out and tell him that Kathy was wrong, that he couldn't transfer because he couldn't change-it would kill him. So instead she simply rolled her shoulders up so that she was sitting straight and asked a question that had already landed her in hot water with him once

"What are you going to do?"


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"What are you going to do?"

Elliot looked up towards the heavens (or if one was going to be literal, the roof of the sedan) seeking some sort of divine intervention so that he didn't have to find an answer to her question. Leave it to Olivia Benson, possessor of more intuition than the entire American Psychiatric Association, to ask the one question he didn't have clear answer to. This had to be the reason that people strove to keep their personal and professional lives separate-so that they didn't end up having beautiful best friends that asked ridiculously complex questions in ridiculously short sentences.

"I'm not transferring" he finally replied.

He looked over at her as she smirked, the expression no quite reaching her eyes. "Well I took that for granted" she quipped.

"Be relieved. Who else would put up with you?" He echoed her words from almost a year earlier. He was joking, not something that he did often anymore, but he knew she would get it. At this point either one of them would have a hell of a hard time working consistently with anyone else. Plus he was hoping his comment would be enough to get her off the subject. Olivia could be relentless when she was interrogating someone, and he did not want her turning that particular skill on him. He didn't know what he was going to do, but if she kept asking he would start blurting out truths he hadn't even considered yet.

"Elliot?" she said.

"I don't know Liv" he said, relieved to see that they were pulling into the parking lot next to the rectangular concrete building that held the M.E.'s offices and labs. He hated admitting that he didn't know what to do. Indecisiveness was not a good quality for a cop. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle. He could feel Olivia's eyes on him as he exited the car, her gaze keeping him warm even as the brisk December air hit his face and hands. He knew exactly what her eyes were doing right now. They were following him, even as she walked side by side with him. They were showing concern, worry, sympathy, and a bit of annoyance. Elliot and Olivia opened the doors and stepped inside the building, their feet striking the ground at the same time so that if anyone was listening, they would think that only one person had entered the building. Some things never change, he thought. No matter how awkward things got between them, physically they were still in sync. He always knew where she was in that way.

"About time you two got here" Melinda Warner commented as she looked up from a body.

"That our girl?" Liv said.

"Yeah. Danielle Shuhgnan. Twenty two years old, student at Hudson. Her parents had her fingerprinted as a child, and I used dental records to backstop the I.D." Warner continued "I did find something anomalous." Elliot waited for Melinda to continue. He had had to fight to keep from flinching when he heard the girl was from Hudson. He hated when a crime had any connection to his kids, and the fact that this girl was blonde and went to Hudson like Maureen made him-

"Elliot" Olivia said. He looked over at her. He could see that she was looking straight into his eyes and he once again had the oddest sensation that she was dredging something up from their depths. He almost expected her to start talking, but she just held his gaze. All of the sudden, he felt connected. It was like she was thinking the exact same thoughts as him, of Hudson and blonde hair and Maureen and he could see her willing him to push it down and focus on the case, to save the anger and panic for later. And he did.

"Could you repeat that?" He asked Melinda

"Sure", she said, her mouth twitching slightly with bemused sarcasm. "The marks on her legs were made with a regular pocket knife, but the ones on her chest with something curved and made of copper".

"How'd you get that?" Olivia asked.

Melinda walked over to the wall and flipped a switch so that two x-rays were illuminated. "See these marks on the ribs? Whoever killed this girl stabbed her so hard that he left distinct marks on the number two and three ribs, and top with a convex edge and the bottom with a concave edge. The weapon left copper trace in the bones."

"So what weapon has a large steeply curved blade and is made of copper?" Elliot asked.

"I don't know. I've got some of the interns matching weapons right now, and I ran the copper samples over to particulates to have them dated. I'll call you as soon as I've got something" Melinda said

"Alright, thanks" Olivia smiled as she left. Elliot followed her out, and they started the familiar walk down the corridor from Autopsy One to the building entrance.

"Ok" she said ten seconds later. Elliot braced himself. He should have known that she had let there previous conversation go too easily. "So we have a young girl from Hudson stabbed to death with some sort of curved copper dagger, than dumped nearly 30 blocks from the campus. What else?"

Elliot blinked. He hadn't expected that. It took him a moment to collect himself. "Not much else. Let's go notify the parents, maybe they can give us something." They got into the car and right away he could feel her eyes on him again. He was about to tell her he was ok when his phone rang. "Stabler" he answered. He heard his wife's voice on the other lined and almost groaned aloud. It had only been three hours since her call this morning. She hadn't had anything to say to him for two and a half years but today she couldn't leave him alone to do his job. The thought immediately made him burn with guilt. He should be happy to hear his wife's voice. It should brighten his day to have contact with her. But it didn't. It never had, really. He has always felt highly annoyed when she showed up at his work, inserting herself into a world she would never understand and didn't belong in. He had always felt like she was smothering him, insisting on reminding him of her presence. And when he had bee assigned Liv as a partner, it had gotten worse. Kathy understood (as much as she could) the responsibility that any partners had to another, that infamous "blue line". And so she had rarely vocalized anything that even remotely sounded like jealousy. But he had known she was jealous-she came down to the precinct more frequently to bring him dinner and made more of an effort to get to know his other coworkers. And she always kissed him before she left, which was odd because she had always been shy about public affection. Behind his thoughts, he could hear his wife still on the phone, asking if he wanted to grab a late lunch. "Kath" he said, trying to keep the aggravation out of his voice, "I can't. I have to go tell a twenty year old girl's parents that she's dead. I'll see you later". Damn, he thought as he hung up. Why had he made the comment about the unpleasantness he was about to deal with? He never talked about his cases with his family unless it was absolutely necessary, like that thing with the drinking parties and Kathleen last year. But this time he hadn't used a case to scare his kids into behaving. He had used it on the offense, as a weapon.

He could feel Olivia looking at him again. She had looked away, out the window while he was on the phone. This time he definitely wasn't going to look at her. He could feel the disapproval radiating out of her every pore, and for once he knew he deserved it. Usually when she looked at him like that it was during a case when they where having a disagreement. He was on solid ground then. But this, when he totally deserved her disapproval-this was something he did not know how to handle with. He reached his eyes briefly back towards the top of the sedan to once again ask god to intervene and make her hold her tongue until they arrived at the vic's parents house.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Olivia looked out the window, thinking that if she kept from looking at him she could keep from saying something about the conversation she had just overheard. Normally, she didn't hold back when she had something to call him on. It was, when it came down to it, one of the things that made them so great together. There were few other people who were not only willing but eager to go toe-to-toe with Elliot Stabler when he was in a mood. Everyone else (with the possible exception of Cragen) just let him storm around the office and leave for the roof (or crib, or elevator, or wherever else) with a glance and the assumption that he'd work it out. Not her. And that was why, after staring outside for five blocks counting trashcans and wondering how many citations she could give out for unshoveled sidewalks if she was still a beat cop, she turned straight at him and said-

"What the hell was that?"

"Another mistake" he sighed bitterly

She waited for him to elaborate for several more trashcans before asking the question that she had twice before been forced to ask. "El, What's going on with you and Kathy?"

"It's like I said on the way here. The job's still getting in the way, she's still upset because she thinks I'm shutting her out" Olivia could see Elliot tensing as he talked, "It's been more than twenty years damn it. You'd think she'd realize that this is just the way I'm going to be. It's like she thought EJ would change that-like all the sudden I'd stop being a cop."

Olivia counted to five before responding. She needed to get control of her thoughts, say the right thing-otherwise she was going to make a big mistake and say something that would destabilize everything. And that was the opposite of her job description. "I'm sure Kathy knows that El. She's your wife; she knows you", She almost gagged on the untruths as they spilled from her lips "Just give her time. Adjusting to a new baby is hard, but I'm sure once it happens she'll ease up. It has to be hard, having to stay away from work to take care of EJ. Isolating"

She saw Elliot look over at her strangely, as if that hadn't been what he'd expected her to say. She mentally replayed her words, panicking slightly at the thought that she might have gotten her worlds mixed up and said what she wanted to say out loud and what she should say in her head. Nope, she thought, I got it right. Stabilizing Elliot, talking him down, talking him back. She could feel him thinking as they drove. He had looked back to the road but was still periodically swerving his eyes in her direction.

When they pulled into the driveway of their victim's parents, Olivia yanked her focus back to the task at hand. That was a big difference between them that was sometimes lost to others-Elliot's emotions, perceptions, and thoughts were constantly intertwining his work and personal lives; Olivia, though she admittedly had her moments, could compartmentalize and inhibit her opinions from the rationale of the cases. She got out of the car, wanting desperately to tell Elliot that she could do the notification herself (he did not look calm) but knew that implying that he couldn't handle this would most likely just set him off further. They walked up the short drive to a sandstone townhouse, and reached the five low brick steps at almost exactly the same moment-he was slightly in front of her as they stepped up, covering the gleaming bricks with their shoes. He reached for the doorbell, and she thought she saw a muscle in his lower arm twitch suddenly. Without another thought, she placed a hand under his forearm, steadying him. He looked over at her and this time she didn't need to dredge up the connection; It came crashing through layers of tissue and blood and bone until it blew right through the walls behind her eyes and bored full force into his. He immediately steadied, pushing the doorbell in so that the button light went out and they heard the faint ding from behind the door. She withdrew her hand as he did it, averting her eyes back to the white door that would soon be opened by people who's world was about to come to a crashing halt. It had only lasted in a second, but in that second she had lost control. Some intrinsic force had decided that he needed her to steady him and had brought forth what she normally had to use a great amount of exertion to bring to the surface, and all without her consent.

Before she could figure out how that had happened after nine years of relentless control, the door opened. She automatically reached for her badge as a petite woman with white blond hair and delicate features looked at them inquiringly and said "Can I help you?"

Before she could respond, Elliot jumped in. "Are you Mrs. Shuhgnan?" he asked quietly.

"Yes" she said.

"Ma'm, my name is Detective Stabler and this is my partner Detective Benson. Could we speak with you for a moment?" Elliot asked, his voice now low and soothing.

"Of course detectives. Please come in" she requested.

As they stepped in and Mrs. Shuhgnan closed the door, Olivia looked back through the small decorative window that had been inlaid into it. She looked back out at their car, and the suburban street with the trashcans lined up neatly to the right side of each driveway. Realizing that she was delaying yet another conversation by looking at trashcans, she stepped forward and said "Mrs. Shuhgnan, I'm afraid we have some bad news…."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Elliot stepped down the red brick steps, pulling all of the cold air that he could into his lungs. He heard the white door click shut behind him and knew that he had to keep moving unless he wanted Olivia to walk right into him. He moved down past the bottom step to the drive, getting the sedan keys out of his pocket as he walked. He watched as Olivia pulled on her door handle, looking up at him with one eyebrow raised when she realized that he hadn't yet unlocked the car. He was moving slow. He didn't want to get back in the car yet; he just wanted to stand outside in the cold, unopressive air for another minute.

He unlocked the doors and got in, bracingly waiting for the oppressiveness that had been so heavy in the Shuhgnan's house to once again collect and push on him for all sides. It didn't. Instead, he felt the anguish that had clung to him ever since Olivia had stepped forward and told Mrs. Shuhgnan of her daughter's death dissipate even further. As he turned his head to back out of the driveway, he snuck a glance at Olivia. She was going through her notes, her neck bent down and a lock of her short hair partially obscuring her face from his view. He tore his eyes away from her to look back and make sure no cars were coming as he backed out.

Once they were safely out of the driveway, he looked at her again. She had been acting strangely ever since she had steadied him at the doorway. Even though stabilizing him like that was something she had done often in their nine years, he sensed that she had somehow been surprised, like it wasn't an ordinary occurrence. She hadn't said anything or looked different, but somewhere inside he knew that he had felt her surprised liked that before. If he wasn't driving, he would have closed his eyes and tried to remember when that was and what had caused it. Instead, he merely looked over at her and said "Alright. What did we learn from that?"

"She was majoring in business, had a good scholarship so she wasn't working anywhere, and had no boyfriends as far as the parents knew". Olivia replied, once again sounding definitive and confident now that they were talking about a case.

Elliot waited for a minute to reply so he could focus on driving through the clogged streets near the precinct. "That's what I thought. Not much to go one-I hope Lake and Fin have had more luck at the school."

He wished they had gotten more out of the parents. It would have given him something tangible to focus his attention on; instead he now felt his thoughts drifting back to that last phone call with Kathy. He should really call and apologize to her. It wasn't her fault that an innocent eight year old had found a dead girl that looked similar to Maureen. It wasn't her fault that he hadn't hashed things out with her before he moved back. He should have made it clear that nothing had changed; that his moving back wasn't some sudden affirmation that he was suddenly going to be all the things she wanted him to be. Yeah, he thought as they pulled into their normal spot, he should call her. In front of Olivia too. She needed to hear him repent, hear that he wasn't really so far gone that he'd start throwing murder cases in his wife's face. He needed to make sure that she still understood him.

As he got out of the car, he picked up his phone. He dialed, slowing down his walk until he was sure that Liv was right behind him. She had been writing more notes when the car had stopped, so she hadn't gotten out until he already placed the call. He wanted to make sure that she heard him apologize.

"Hello?" Kathy answered from the other side of New York.

"Hey Kath" he said as he walked into the building. "Listen, I don't have time to talk-I just wanted to apologize for snapping earlier. I'll see you tonight, okay?"

He heard her sigh into the phone "Alright, thank you. Be safe" she said and then hung up.

Elliot walked to the waiting elevator, automatically holding his arm to the door so the Olivia could walk in behind him. He swung around, expecting to see her following him, but she was no where to be seen. He automatically withdrew his hand as the door bumped against it, letting him know that it wanted to close. As he rode up in the elevator alone, he wondered when she had stopped following him. Had she taken the stairs because she thought he needed privacy? Damn her. Really, what was the use of forcing himself to apologize if she wasn't around to hear it?

That thought instantly made him want to get down on the ground and say hail marys until the elevator got to his floor. He should have wanted to apologize to Kathy; letting Olivia hear it was supposed to just be a secondary benefit. Damn again. Automatically putting Liv into his thoughts before his wife had been happening entirely too frequently for his comfort. In fact, it had happened almost always over the past eight years or so-what the hell did that mean?

Just as he was about to start really having to dissect this whole situation, the elevator doors opened to his squadroom. Ironic, he thought, that his sanity was being preserved by the insanity of this one room. He looked towards his desk and saw Olivia's figure slouched by her computer, her fingers punching into the keys almost pugnaciously. How in the world had she beaten him by taking the stairs? He moved towards their desks, still feeling frustrated that she hadn't heard him redeem himself.

She filled him in on what Fin and Lake had found out without ever taking her eyes from the computer. He wanted to make a comment about the aggressiveness and she was displaying against the machine, but held his tongue. As he got up to step away to the white board where all of their information on the case was written, she quietly said "It was good that you called her El"

"Didn't think you heard" he said a bit gruffly.

"I didn't. Just saw you take out your phone" she replied

"How did you know?" he asked, desperate that there would be some sort of all inclusive answer in what she said.

" Because I still know you" she whispered loudly enough for him to hear.

"_I still know you_" he heard as he stepped towards the board.

"_I still know you_" he heard as he stepped to look closer at Fin's notations.

"_I still know you_" he heard as he stepped back towards her.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Olivia typed away at her computer, trying to find any connections at all between the victim (Danielle) and well, anything. Munch, Fin, and Lake had all just left with lists of Danielle's friends and acquaintances and were headed back to Hudson to talk to everyone. So far they had nothing. Zilch. The tension level in the squad was reaching the same level that it always did when they were working with very little evidence. The only real clue that they had was that Danielle had been stabbed with two different knives; one a normal pocket knife and the other a large copper dagger.

She heard a large clunk from across her desk and looked up to see Elliot slam his paperweight back on his desk. He had been searching ViCap for any similar M.O.'s but if his current paperweight abuse was any indication, he'd come up without any matches. She looked back down to continue searching, but felt a twinge run up the back side of her neck and realized that if she didn't rub the kinks out she would have a hard time moving her head for the next few days. She reached up with both hands, rubbing her lower neck and shoulders. She could feel Elliot's eyes on her. No wonder he wasn't getting anywhere-ever since there little conversation about his phone call he had looked at her approximately every three minutes. She wanted to look up at him and say "What?" just to stop him from doing it. She didn't, but only because she knew why he kept looking at her. Relief. She had heard the desperation in his voice when he asked her how she knew he would call Kathy. He had needed to know that even with the changes, the years, she could still read him like a book. So she told him. In their world of few vocalizations, "I still know you" meant "I still know you'll do the right thing. I still have faith that you know what the right thing is. I still trust you to get what I'm saying even if it is only with a look and four words."

So he was relieved at the affirmation, much as she was. Until she whispered the words, she hadn't known if they were true or not. Sometimes it was more difficult for her to know instantly what he was thinking; Sometimes it even took a little detective work of her own. But the fact that she had known he wouldn't be able to go more than two hours without trying to make things right between him and Kathy (the pain shot back up her neck) and had known that he wanted her to know he had apologized grounded her in the truth. She still knew him.

She lifted her hands from her neck and looked up. He was staring at his notes, a wrinkle between his brows and tense lines around his chin. She knew that look too, damn it. He was working through something, puzzling it out. For someone who was often extrinsic, he could be quite adept at working through things internally when he wanted too. The problem was, when he didn't vocalize his thoughts they were most likely not on a case. They were probably personal again.

Olivia felt her irritation from a couple days ago creep back into her system. She knew that he was having a tough time right now. The whole damn day had absolutely sucked for him. Hell, they had even talked about it, which was not a common occurrence. At some point, however, he was going to have to focus back on the case. She was going to have to figure out how to get him back on task. Although she was a damn good cop, they worked much better and solved quicker when they were throwing ideas at each other and working together.

"El" she said, looking up. "I'm getting nowhere quickly-You find anything at all that's similar?"

"Nope" he said. "Nothing on the knives, nothing on the location. I've cross referenced everyway I can think of and still didn't get anywhere"

She took that in, feeling more annoyed than ever that he was pretending he hadn't been just off in LaLa land. "What were you doing right before I asked? Did you find any other connections in you notes that I missed?"

"I wish the others would get back here with something" was all he said in reply. That surprised her a bit. She had thought he would get defensive, mad, if she implied that he hadn't told her the complete truth. She couldn't very well confront him if he was going to turn passive on her all of the sudden. Just as she was about to tell him to go grab them dinner (if his mind was going to turn off on her he may as well do something useful) both of their phones started ringing. "Benson" she said into hers.

"Olivia" Munch said. "I think we've got the guy"

"What?" She replied, confused. From the look on Elliot's face he had just received similar news from Lake or Fin.

"Grad student she was dating. He's an archeologist. We found a pocket knife in his room and a copper dagger from the collection he was authenticating turned up missing" Munch explained. "We're bringing him in now"

Olivia said bye to Munch and hung up. She looked over at Elliot who still seemed to be feeling a bit of kilter. She didn't blame him. Rarely did cases go from being cold to solved in the space of two hours.

"Well" he said "I guess in this case good old fashioned leg work really came through"

She didn't reply. She had been about to make a remark when she saw a flash of blonde coming towards them from far down the corridor. At first she thought it was Kathy-Didn't the women have enough sense to give Elliot a little space when he was so tense? Her aggravation reached a whole new level. It wasn't any of her business, true, but it didn't make it any less annoying. If they started fighting, Kathy wasn't going to have to be the one to calm him down. She would leave, and Olivia would again have to do the soothing, the real fighting, whatever had to be done to fix Elliot.

As the woman came closer she realized that is was Maureen. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and replaced her plastered on grimace with a genuine smile. She liked Maureen-she had watched her grow from a boy crazy teenager into a young woman with a great deal of empathy, insightfulness, and poise. Olivia had always sensed a strength within her that wasn't present in her next youngest sister. She saw a lot of Elliot in her.

" Hey Maureen" she said, widening her smile. "How's it going?"

" Hi Liv" she smiled back, "Everything is great". She looked at her father "Hey Dad-Can I talk to you for a second?" Olivia saw Maureen's smile waver suddenly and looked to see if Elliot had caught it. He hadn't.

"Sure" Elliot said. "C'mon, we'll use the conference room". He looked back at Olivia and shrugged slightly before steering Maureen to one of the open conference room doors.

Olivia sat down at her desk, a little worried by the nervousness she had seen in Maureen's smile. She hoped to hell that whatever they were talking about was good. She knew that giving Elliot bad news when he was already stressed to the max would not end well for either of them. She tapped away at her computer, absently pressing the keys as she listened for any sounds from the conference room that would signal that she was needed. Hearing nothing, she continued tapping, relieved that Elliot was handling whatever was going on with out raising his voice. She was still typing away when Munch, Fin, and Lake arrived. She was still typing when the interrogated the suspect. And she was still typing when Maureen and Elliot came out of the conference room, each looking much the same as when they went in.

Maureen came over to her and surprised her with a half hug. "See you soon" she said.

Olivia stopped typing. Now what had that been all about?


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Elliot walked behind his daughter into the empty conference room. The cavernous room with its large wood table seemed too spacious for a conversation with his oldest daughter, but it was better than one of the interrogation rooms. It wasn't often that his children made an appearance at the squad room, but with the exception of his birthday a few years back (thanks to Olivia) it was always serious.

Maureen took a seat in one of the chairs and pointed to the one across the table from her, indicating that he should sit their. This made Elliot a bit more nervous; he would have preferred to sit beside her. After he sat, and after she had rustled around putting her jacket across the back of her chair, she looked at him and said "Dad, I need to talk to you."

He looked at her. Instead of feeling intimidating, sitting across from his daughter in the large room, he felt the opposite. Maureen suddenly looked very calm and collected, and he almost felt like squirming. It was amazing really, that he could face down some of the cities toughest criminals, lawyers, and cops, yet this petite blonde girl was making him feel nervous and flushy.

"Ok." Was all he said. He really didn't know how to handle Maureen as an adult, but he was quickly realizing that that was how she had come here. An adult coming to talk to another adult.

"I need to get through this without you interrupting; you can talk or yell all you want afterwards, but please lend me enough respect to let me say what I need to first" she continued, now looking not only calm but with a rather odd gleam in her eye.

"Ok." He repeated because once again, what could he say?

"Dad, I love you. And I love Mom and our family. " She was looking him straight in the eye now. "But you can't continue to do this"

He couldn't help himself "Do what?" he asked

She shot him a sharp glance before continuing. "You aren't happy Dad. Mom isn't either. And quite frankly, neither are Lizzie and Dickie. It wasn't right for Mom to ask you to come home after you signed the papers. It wasn't right for you to go back there. "

Elliot had to interrupt. He couldn't just sit there and let her continue with this. He didn't want those things spoken out loud, made true. "Mo, your mother and I are working on-

"No Dad" she cut him off, obviously determined to get through this. Damn stubborn daughter. He didn't know where she got that from. She persisted " You and Mom shouldn't have to work things out. It isn't healthy for either of you. I see it, and I'm not even living with you. Mom's stressed all the time, and you look at the front door as if its some sort of escape portal that you can't wait to bolt through. "

"That's not true" he interrupted again. "I love being with all of you."

"I know" she said. "We all know. But being with us and living in that house are two different things. We're your kids, Dad. All of us, me, Kathleen, Dickie, Lizzie and EJ. That never changes. But at some point you have to stop thinking about giving up everything for us. Because that isn't fair to us. We want you happy and whole, and instead of getting that back when you moved home you've gotten worse. And before you say it, I know you care about Mom. She cares about you too. But that was never enough-I just don't think anybody actually realized it until you two separated."

Elliot tried to say something, but he was having a hard time breathing. Where had is eldest daughter gone? The poised young woman who had just laid him bare certainly wasn't her. She was looking at him now, expectantly, and he realized he was being given permission to talk. "I can change" he said, not really able to look at her. "I can try harder to get home on time, make your mom happy-

"No Dad" she said for the second time in the conversation. "We don't want you to change. You shouldn't have too. Not when everyone who truly loves you wouldn't have you any other way." At this point her eyes shifted from his to look over his shoulder. He craned his head around, trying to see what had caught her attention, but all he saw was Olivia typing away on her computer. Puzzled, he turned back to Maureen. "Mo" he said, using her childhood nickname in an attempt to gain a bit of control of this conversation, "I won't work here forever. I want to come home to my family at the end of the day"

"You still can Dad. Mom won't challenge shared custody. And Olivia-"

Elliot looked at her, surprised. "What does Olivia have to do with this?" he asked warily.

Maureen looked at him, open pity in her eyes. She got up, walked around the table, and hugged him. As she straightened she said "Dad. Someday you'll retire; Do you really think you'll be ok not seeing her everyday?"

And with that she smiled, the expression brightening her face and reaching her eyes. She opened the door, turned back and said "Just think about it" before purposefully walking out. His eyes followed her to Olivia's desk where she stopped to give her a small hug before walking back towards the elevator. Elliot stood up slowly, trying desperately to replay that conversation. Had his eldest daughter just told him to leave her mother? And what the hell was the parting shot about Olivia? His brain was running over time. He looked over towards his desk, seeing her still typing away. Of course he would always see her. They'd go for coffee, for lunch. It wouldn't be the same, but it would be something. Something. What was that Maureen had said? "Giving up everything". Everything. What was everything? He had forgotten to ask her that, but the entire conversation was still washing over him. He still wasn't sure what had just happened, but as he exited the room he was pretty sure that he had just had his ass handed to him by another female he cared about. That made three today. He turned and looked back into the now empty conference room. Backwards was nothing. Nothing.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Olivia walked home from the precinct feeling the odd sense of frustration and relief and guilt that she always felt after work. Even though they had closed Danielle's case and handed the boyfriend over to Casey to be charged, she still felt like she needed to be at work. That was the curse that came with this job- a compulsion to always be there, always be ready when the next scum bag needed to be brought in or the next victim talked to. Going back to her apartment, retreating, giving up the battle for one night in order to regroup always felt a bit cowardly to her.

At least she had stayed until their perp had been interrogated, booked, and settled in the holding cell for the night. Elliot had steamed out of the bullpen sometime in between interrogation and booked. She didn't really know exactly when he had left, because he hadn't apprised her of his departure. Bit frustrating, really, but not nearly as frustrating as the fact that everyone seemed to think she was his keeper. She must have gotten five inquiries as to where her partner had gone. She had simply replied, "home I think" to each question, even though she had absolutely no idea. He hadn't apprised her of that either.

She lifted her keys to the door of the building, surprised that she had made the trip in such good time. Then she noticed that she was really huffing hard and realized that she must have been doing some really aggressive pavement pounding to have made the walk so quickly. Sheesh. She hadn't known that she was that aggravated with him.

Then again, she thought as she trudged up the stairs to her apartment, it was alright that she was aggravated. After Maureen had hugged her, spouted her cryptic little goodbye, and left, Elliot had come hesitantly back to their desks. She had asked him if everything was alright, but all she got out of him was a "fine". Damn Stablers. None of them were ever upfront. Well, seeing as how Maureen had looked moderately cheerful when she had left, Olivia wasn't going to put out the effort the make sense out of any of them. After she had given up, they had just sat at their desks in silence, alternating getting up to check on how Munch and Fin were doing with the suspect. Every time she got up and looked over at Elliot, he had this seriously unsettled look about him, the kind you would have if your best friend had just sprouted a second head out of their neck. She knew she had been a little careless with the makeup this morning, but there certainly was no second head, so being looked at like that was just plain uncalled for.

"Damn Stablers," she muttered out loud as she fished her keys out and unlocked the door. Her life would be a hell of a lot less nutty without them constantly barraging their way into it. Elliot everyday just by existing, his kids when they had issues they couldn't talk to either parent about, the baby when it was born, Kathy when she asked for a divorce, came to the precinct pregnant, almost died with Olivia behind the wheel. Her life wouldn't be boring without them. She still had a job that was unpredictable and dangerous and held a strong compulsion over her.

As soon as that thought entered her head she stopped so suddenly that she almost lost her footing on the wood floor just inside of her apartment door. Life without the Stablers. Life without Elliot. "God" she said out loud, not praying but just using the phrase as a simple figure of speech. Who would she be if they had never been partnered? What would she be? What would HE be?

And just like that she sung around, locked her apartment back up, and headed back to work. She told herself that she was just going back to stop these renegade thoughts from escaping into her brain, but she knew better. She needed to see their desks, pushed together in confirmation that they really existed. She needed to see her's, see his' because without him she had absolutely no idea if she really existed. She picked up the pace of her walk, almost jogging as she made her way back to the precinct.

Damn Stablers, she thought.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Elliot was sitting at his desk at the precinct trying to concentrate on his DD-5s. He hated doing the paperwork, and always avoided it until the last minute, but the forms on his desk had reached proportions that were unacceptable even to him.

And he had really needed a good excuse to get out of his house and back to his real reality.

He had tried to go home. He had even left early, though that was admittedly due more to the fact that he was having major problems looking Olivia in the face than any desire to please his wife. Man he was a bastard. A cowardly one at that, he thought sardonically. He had run away from Liv, but since on coming home he had found that looking Kathy in the face was even more problematic than Olivia, he had run right back to the station, tail firmly between his legs.

What was he supposed to do, really? I mean, he thought, has there ever actually been a man in a situation like this before? Pretty wife whom he felt loyal too, beautiful partner whom he wanted thrash half the time and was content to stare at for the rest of it (something he'd only admitted to himself in the last half hour) and offspring who was encouraging him to break with religion and moral duty and divorce his wife for his tumultuous partner. There wasn't a man on earth who wouldn't have retreated at this point.

Elliot looked down, determined to get through his paperwork so that when the real workday started in the morning he would actually be able to use his desk. There were pictures scattered among the papers, old coffee rings covering parts of the plexi glass, and DD5's in absolutely no chronological or alphabetical order. And the fact that the DD5's were a bigger job than he originally supposed made it even more difficult to pull his mind from his contorted private affairs to the task of organizing them and filling them out.

Just as he was tempted to sneak across into Olivia's desk and rifle through her neatly filed papers to find the information he needed, he heard strident, rhythmic footsteps eating up the empty space between the elevator and the bullpen. Even with the level of distraction and annoyance and overall confusion he was dealing with at the moment he could still recognize those footfalls in a jiffy.

Olivia. Great.

The truly sick thing was that even though she was currently a large (albeit somewhat unwilling, thanks to Maureen) contributor to his current quandary, he was still relieved to hear her footsteps. It was a confirmation, like the one she had gifted him with earlier. He still knew her. He still knew her footfalls, her pattern and habit of movement. Some things simply couldn't be erased by stress or distance or neglect; they were always there out of sheer need.

He heard her hesitate slightly as she came through the doors and up behind him. He didn't blame her-she had thought he was safely home for the night, even if he hadn't actually informed her of his whereabouts. He turned in his chair, swiveling it around away from his desk so that he could face her.

"Hey" he greeted simply.

"Thought you were home for the night," she said, the statement both one of surprise and mild rapprochement.

He smirked slightly, forcing himself to look up at her, forcing himself to keep the cocky expression on his face even though he was terrified at what he would see if he met her eyes. But to his relief, all he saw was Olivia. As she was every day. "I was. But the paperwork that I've been avoiding for the past two months dialed my cell all by itself, so I figured that that was alarming enough to come back here and clear it off."

"Ah" she replied simply.

Elliot looked at her again. He had honestly been scared that when he saw her something from Mo's lecture (Getting lectured by his own children. Ridiculous.) would jump back into his brain and hit him like a lightening bolt. He had been worried that all the sudden she would look completely different, like some sort of siren and not the woman who had been his absolute partner for the better part of nine years. But instead, she looked much as she always did, albeit a bit flushed (she must either be mad or have walked briskly from her apartment). Not to say that she wasn't good looking. Beautiful. Attractive. Shit, he thought. Olivia was attractive. He had always known that, hadn't he?

Yeah, he had. He watched her sit down at her desk, trying to push the memories that that particular adjective was dredging up. Her touching his arm thousands of times, standing close to him while they compared notes day after day, squirming in his arms after he had pulled her off of that bomb suspect, settling in his arms after he had pulled her into a fierce hug. Yes, he thought, remembering how his skin had tingled every time she was close, he had always been aware of the fact that she was attractive. Too attractive.

His thoughts were interrupted by Olivia asking him if he had eaten already. He had, but he didn't tell her that. He wanted to sit across the desk from her eating bad Chinese. He always did, even when they were so mad at each other that talking or even looking at each other civilly was impossible. So all he did was raise his eyebrows at her at say "Wong Foos?"

She nodded and reached for the phone. He listened to her order and felt a vague sense of satisfaction creep over him. Things were still normal, no matter what Mo had thought she saw. They could still eat together, talk with their eyes, interact. They still knew each others movements and thoughts. She still knew exactly what he would want to order from Wong Foos. Normal was good. Normal was great.

Normal was the relationship he'd had with this woman for nine years.

Relationship

Damn

And sitting at his desk, Elliot realized that the normal relationship he'd had with Olivia for almost a decade was exactly what he'd always thought his marriage would be like-attraction, absolute trust, and a sense of settling, belonging that was secure, unwavering. Maureen was right.

Damn


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Olivia's Chinese food was off. Really off. Odd, she thought, considering that they basically lived off of the stuff during long cases and it hadn't ever tasted old or bad. She put her carton back down on her desk and stared at the tempting picture in front of her.

Elliot. Or, to be more precise, Elliot's half eaten cartons of food spread out among the papers he was frantically filling out, copying her neat notes onto his own DD5 sheets. Apparently he was so far behind he hadn't even been able to recall the order or numbers of most of the cases. Good thing she always kept extra copies of each case file from the last ninety days in her bottom desk drawers, she thought a bit resignedly. Otherwise she was pretty sure Casey would through Elliot's ass in jail for some trumped up charge until he finished his five's and gave them too her.

Yep, she thought, saving him from jail (and Casey, which was probably the worse of the two) definitely qualified her to snag some of his dinner. She reached across the desk, picked up one of the cartons, and slid back to her own side. Not bothering to take out his fork and use her own, she shoved a mound of Lo Mein and rice into her mouth, relieved that his tasted fine.

Elliot made no comment about her purloining his food. He didn't really have any right to, but still, she rather wished he would say something. Anything, really. When she had strode back into the precinct hours ago and saw him sitting at his desk, it had been both relieving and a bit surreal. All she had really wanted to do was sit in her desk, do her work, and glance across at his a couple of times to ensure that he was still around somewhere. Instead, she had seen him sitting there much as he did everyday. A person couldn't ask for a better confirmation than that.

But now that she had seen him, had gleaned the confirmation she had so desperately needed, she felt a bit guilty about not encouraging him to get home. After all, they were both supposed to be back in less than eight hours. She would get a night of solid sleep up in the crib, but he would surely be woken up at least once by the baby and really should head home to get all the sleep he needed.

The truth was, she didn't want him to leave. She wanted to sit across from him, hearing him curse his paperwork, pen, computer, her small writing, anything just to get him sounding like himself again. The new, thoughtful Elliot that had emerged over the last day was a welcome reprieve from the brooding intensity (that was, as Melinda had once said, "Just annoying") that had preceded it but it was also damn odd. The fact that he seemed to be constantly thinking about something and not letting her in on it was unbalancing. He kept looking at her as though he was trying to see something else, and though it was a vast improvement over the "grew an extra head look" of the afternoon, this new look was still strange.

Not able to any longer squelch her conscience and its repetitive remonstrances, Olivia looked up at him and said "El, go home. I can finish these up"

He didn't even look up at her but replied "Olivia, you shouldn't have to do my paperwork for me."

"It's just copying, you only have two left. Besides, I'm going to have to reorganize mine anyways. It'll be easy to put yours in order at the same time." She batted back.

He looked up at her again, with that same weird look on his face. "Liv," he said, " You need to go home and sleep as much as I do."

"No, I don't" she kept on arguing. " You have a new baby that's going to keep you up half the night. I can do these, go to sleep, and still catch more rest than you."

"You're right. I should get back home. But don't finish the papers; I'll do it tomorrow at some point" he said. If she didn't know him better, and know that even with all the crap going on at home he would still prefer to be there, she'd have thought he looked disappointed.

"I'll just pick the stuff up before I leave" she said, not wanting him to know that she was going to do the papers anyways and sleep in the crib. "Night El."

"Goodnight Liv" he said, shooting her one last look as he headed out of the room and down the hall.

Olivia went over to his desk and sat in it, not at all feeling like trying to transport the papers spread all over it to her side. She scribbled the last two DD-5's and organized both her and Elliot's papers so that they were in order by closing date. She put his in a big accordion folder before getting up and moving around the desk to pull out her bottom drawer and re-file her copies.

At last starting to feel tired, she grabbed the empty Chinese cartons off of the desk. She couldn't really remember which had been her stuff and which had been his; it had gotten all jumbled up at some point during the night. It didn't really matter, since it was all going in the trash anyways-neither of them was going to want the other's leftovers come morning. She dumped it into the empty trashcan nearest to the hallway (otherwise the smell would permeate the bullpen, and while Chinese food smelled great at eleven at night, it would not smell nearly as good when seven am rolled around) observing once again how jumbled up it had become. Her last coherent thought before she climbed the stairs to the cribs was that no matter how funky hers had tasted, mixed with his it probably would have been ok.


End file.
